If more PC manufacturers switched to all USB-C designs, yes, it would speed the transition to USB-C peripherals, to the extent we still need them at all (Apple's vision is wireless, as they said when they announced the MacBook). If you look, Apple has NOT released lots of dongles for the MacBook in over 1.5 years. Just the VGA, HDMI, and USB-A adapters.
I still don't agree. USB-C will eventually match the current ubiquity of USB-A as peripherals transition and people replace their old peripherals.
Also, Apple is able to be more radical in its design because it has a captive audience (they alone sell OS X). It's users are often locked into that ecosystem, so they are forced into accepting Apple's decisions. However, if the rumors are true, I hope Apple users revolt by not purchasing this monstrosity.
I admire Apple products most of the time, but the current defense of such a move is in my mind unfounded. No one here who is advocating for only USB-C ports has expressed how overjoyed they will be when they have to pull out a dongle just to connect a thumb drive while away from a desk or tallied the cost of the necessary dongles or hubs (=quality dongles and hubs from trusted manufacturers and not Chinese counterfeits which risk damaging your Mac).
The longer that PC manufacturers provide a variety of ports to "allow for a smoother transition" the longer new peripherals using the old ports will continue to be released.
I think you give too much credit to Apple's influence on a market where the share of OS X users is minuscule compared to that of Windows.
Heck, many PCs still ship with VGA ports even though they are no longer natively supported by the chipsets.
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That's because businesses still use equipment with VGA connectors. You may find that to be antiquarian, but businesses drive adoption and businesses don't adopt every new technology when it comes out, especially smaller businesses whose margins are often razer thin.
My guess is that Apple thought it pointless to do a Skylake refresh of the old design when a new design was in the works. The MacBook, which is relatively new and won't get a radical redesign anytime soon, was updated, albeit a few months after the chips became available, but after Intel had worked out the bugs, so the timing worked out well.
Sorry, the only update held back by Apple's redesign was the 13" MBP. Chipsets for the 15" are being released this quarter.[/QUOTE]
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I'm not frustrated, and even if the Iris Pro hasn't been included doesn't mean Apple cannot include the dGPU.
Apple got greedy and let the configurations for the MBP slide as they wanted to maximize profits, pure and simple.
For the sake of argument, that the Skylake processor is not available, does that mean there's no Broadwell chipset available for Apple to use - because the 15" MBP is still running Haswell? Apple has to have known what is coming and what is not coming from intel, they're not in the dark, like every other major customer, Intel keeps them informed and Apple most certainly could have done something, instead they sat on their laurels when other makers did not.
You are absolutely correct that Apple should have updated to Broadwell. The omission of a Broadwell-based 15" MBP is inexcusable.
I agree Apple has found itself in a corner, but is it not possible that Apple's decision to design a system with an iGPU and dGPU was based on a road map that Intel later changed and resulted in the current situation?
We may never know, but I don't presume the situation is necessarily only Apple's fault.
I do have a question for you, sincerely: would you really want Apple to forego its dual GPU configuration (iGPU with dGPU) if it meant lower battery (dGPU only) or lower performance (Intel HD iGPU instead of Iris Pro)?
